Sleepless Long Nights (That's What My Youth Was For)
by tore-my-yellow-dress
Summary: <html><head></head>"You're kind of cute," Will cracks a smile, taking in the thick, black frames. "It's like the perfect mixture of Diane and Steve Urkel."</html>


**A/N- This is post 5x15. But read it all the way through before you get sad about it. P.S. I miss this ship so frigging much. Castro's words tonight were like a machete through my chest. Hope you enjoy!**

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><p>She's up too late, holding a Bible in her hands.<p>

The finely printed script nearly blurs through the lenses, lighting dim and yellow. She shivers at the chill that drafts through her bedroom. It's not cold enough to turn on the heating, and she enjoys the way her expensive nightgowns feel on her skin a little too much to cede entirely to the October sweater weather. Alicia realizes, very abruptly, that she has been reading the same verse for the past two minutes, and she still can't fathom what it means.

Maybe she really wasn't built for this. This book in her hands, the words that are only words, and Alicia tucks her fallen piece of dark hair behind her ear and sighs heavily. She feels sorry for her daughter. Of all the mothers Grace could have ended up with. She doesn't want to believe in God or heaven or pretty purple unicorns that dance like faeries. She sees no need for it, no matter how her seventeen year old can spin stories and hopes. Alicia adjusts her glasses. The covers shift beside her.

"You're going to bed late," she comments mildly, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye.

Will makes a noise in the back of his throat, shrugging off his pants. Quietly, Alicia admires him in his dark boxers and a white t-shirt. _Now there's something to praise Jesus about,_ she thinks.

"I had some work to do," he informs, placing one of her law dictionaries on his side table, and when he notes the book in her hand, he snorts, face crinkling. "And apparently so did you. Are we finally getting religious?"

He looks at her fully for the first time, his brown eyes warm and chocolate and when he looks at her with this kind of adoration, it feels like she's come to peace. And then his brow furrows, and his expression shifts, and he goes, "Are we finally getting religious _in our old age?" _

"What?" Alicia startles, cocking her head like a confused dog.

Will is equally as flabbergasted. "Where did those glasses come from?"

Alicia's face gets hot, and she takes them off in a split second, chest growing a little tight in defense. "I need glasses when I read, Will. I've been complaining about it for six months. We're getting old."

"I'm doing just fine, Alicia. You, on the other hand, are going to need a walker by fifty."

"Shut up," she groans heartily, swatting his arm. Her phone beeps with an incoming message, and she's temporarily distracted by Eli's message, a frown taking residence upon her open features. Will senses the shift in her demeanor. He leans over and strokes her bare shoulder, proceeding to play with the strap of her black nightie.

"The campaign?" he inquires, keeping his tone light and noncommittal.

"The campaign," she confirms with a grim whisper. She closes her eyes. "I don't want to think or talk about it right now. Okay, Will?"

"Sure," he agrees, inhaling slowly. He wishes he could rub the lines out of her forehead. It's one of the reasons he likes watching her sleep. The way she never has any worries. The way she's always so at peace. Always beautiful, in the waking hours or in dreamland. He looks at the pair of readers.

"Put them back on," he orders.

Alicia narrows her eyes at him. "No. You're just going to make fun of me some more."

"No, I'm serious. Please," Will pleads, leaning in and thrusting an arm behind her back to pull her close to him. He takes her ear between his teeth and nibbles for the added effect, relishing in the way she quakes slightly. "_Please." _

Slowly, she places them, before shifting in his arms, moving so that she's on top of the bedsheets, so that he can get a full, unhindered view.

He cracks a smile. "You're kind of cute," he offers simply.

"Oh, I'm glad you think so."

"Alicia, I'm being serious," Will cracks a smile. "It's like the perfect mixture of Diane and Steve Urkel."

That does it.

Alicia moves to tackle him, to play fight with him, but before she can, Will moves like a wiry catlike animal, the brute strength of his upper arms gaining the literal upper hand, and in less than three seconds he has her pinned down against the mattress. Her chest heaves, breasts pressed up against his chest. Nipples hard, a growl in the back of her throat. Alicia laughs against his lips.

He kisses her hard, whole, and real.

"You're going to fog up my glasses," she warns teasingly, basking in the becoming taste of his minty toothpaste. He pulls back a little to stare at her some more. Dark hair fanning out in a halo against the sheets, pink lips, big, thick glasses offset by the snow-white pale of her skin.

Will is overtaken by how much he adores her, in this split second.

He pecks the tip of her nose in such a sweet manner that Alicia goes a bit pink.

It's in the way he looks at her that she knows he loves her. He loves her. He loves her.

It feels like it's sinking into every pore. It covers her up.

He presses his mouth to her mouth, chest to chest, baring his weight down just enough so that the outline of his body is pressed against her own, and Alicia chokes out a moan at the feel of him. The feel of normalcy, of sinking into bones, and he moves his tongue in her mouth and she wraps her finally free hands up in his damp hair, fresh from shower. He hoists her legs around his waist, grinding down, beckoning any sound he can get out of her.

Then, the phone beeps again.

Then, the edge of the readers digs a little too painfully into the curve of his nose.

"Ugh," she whines, when they finally pull away in discomfort. She tears off the glasses with a sigh, sitting up with him and rubbing her eyes. He looks at her phone from a few feet away, but Alicia makes no move to pick it up or read whatever message Eli has for her. Will takes note of this, getting a little more situated into a sleeping position.

Once she has the glasses put away for good, she lies down next to him, heads on their pillows. Like they've done this a million times, and like they will do this a million nights more. They face each other, like lovers; like spouses. In fact, there's a silver band on his finger.

Her own diamond sparkles in the hazy light.

Will reaches out and touches her face, one that is obviously deep in thought. He brushes her hair back. He strokes her cheek. Alicia lets the tension go away, allows her mind to drift. This is the only time they can have this. He knows this. She knows this.

"You're the better politician," he murmurs, for her ears, and only her ears.

Alicia is taken off guard. "What?"

He smiles a little. "I'm the better lawyer. I've always been the better lawyer. But you've always had a better grasp on the politics, on the chess game."

She goes to open her mouth, but he stops her, presses his finger to her lips in a universal sign of silence. Will leans in, leans in so close that she can smell his aftershave and his scent. Him, the way he's always smelled, since they were twenty-something at Georgetown, a little apartment, no space. He's always been like this, this presence, this aura that fits her like her favorite sweater, home, peace, _loved. _

He presses a kiss to her forehead, lips cool against her skin. His thin, perfect lips.

Alicia closes her eyes, and it feels like waiting on the edge of a cliff, just waiting to dive.

He tells her, "You kick ass, warrior princess."

There's a beat, and she holds her breath.

"Or should I say Justice Florrick?"

And she's grinning, eyes scrunched closed, and she can feel him shaking with laughter against her at the title. Wouldn't that be something? Wouldn't that be _something?_

She's so _happy, _and she goes to open her eyes, to tell him, _okay, okay, I'll run, you jackass, I love you, of course I'll run with you by my side, of course I'll- _

/

/

/

She wakes at six in the morning, and the problem with dreams like this is that for a split second she always thinks reality is a dream, and _he is real, he is alive, he is in bed with her_. But he never is, he's always still buried in the ground, a corpse, probably maggots eating flesh.

She could gag. She could cry.

And she_ is_ crying, suddenly and abruptly.

"Son of a bitch," Alicia bites out, all charred in bitter, the ugliest kind of tone, and she's sitting up in bed and wiping at her stinging, tired eyes. It's because of Castro, because he brought it up. He brought up the skeleton in the closet. The _gunned down in one of my courts, _and how dare he, how dare he, _how dare he. _It's because of the pressure to run for State's Attorney, because of all of this goading from infamous individuals rallying behind her. It's because of Grace.

It's because a few days ago, when Grace had sat down with her to discuss theological strategies, Alicia had pulled out those stupid glasses and the seventeen year old had laughed at her mother, had made fun of the dorkiness of them. And Alicia had thought- for a sliver of a second- _God, what would Will say?_

And it's because she ate a late dinner last night.

It's because of God.

Because some spiteful, incredibly real God isn't satisfied with her life performance, and he's determined to punish her. To hurt her. It hurts. It hurts so much it takes her breath away.

She can still smell him.

She can still taste him.

It was so real.

It felt so real.

Alicia rolls onto her side and wipes her face, tries to think about strategy, think about Cary, think about the firm, and then she freezes. Alicia goes absolutely still. Every cell in her body coming to a screeching halt. She goes a ghostly shade of white.

The law dictionary lies there, open and fresh.

Alicia stares at it in the near blackness, the only light illuminating anything is of the moon, streaming in through her bedroom windows. Alicia doesn't know the emotion running through her. She doesn't know if it's fear or shock or thrill. She just stares.

She shifts onto her back once again, gazes up at the ceiling.

She thinks on it, at six in the morning.

She knows that she does not believe in God. She does not believe in heaven or angels or a happy ending where everyone gets what they want and the good people _live. _

But she believes in this.

No. She believes in _him. _

She believes in Will. She always believed in Will. (She wishes he'd known that. She wishes he'd _known.)_

So, that's why Alicia says, at a conversational volume level, so that anybody whom is listening can hear her:

"Don't worry, okay? I'll run."

She closes her eyes.

"I'll run."

/

/

/

fin.


End file.
